Customer Reviews

Seeing Eye Dog

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When you order this album, you will receive two CDs; one that is the new album, and the other that is their live set from the 2006 San Francisco stop of the Warped tour. If anything, this is a must buy for the live CD. There are some moments where you can hear Paige interacting with the crowd that are pretty funny.

The new material is all in all pretty good. This is a hard album to describe because there are so many different styles going on here. I will try to point out some highlights.

While the songs all have the Helmet sound, there are a few songs where Paige has taken a step out of his mold. And to me, these are the better songs on the album. In particular, I find LA Water to be a direction that I would like Helmet to go. It is still heavy, but it is more complex and layered composition. It even has some good melodies in it. Easily the best song on the album to me.

Another great song is Seeing Eye Dog. This is a nod to old school Helmet. Its main riff is heavily syncopated ala Meantime. You are just slapped in the face with a wall of guitar sound.

Interestingly, Helmet have chosen to do a cover song for this CD. That song is And Your Bird can Sing, by the Beatles. A peculiar choice, but it works somehow. When I first heard it, I didn't realize it was a cover, but all I could think was "So this what Paige would sound like if he was going to write a song in the style of Boston."

Another stand out track to me is "She's Lost". Again, its a wall of guitar that just hits you. The drums come in followed by some screeching guitar until the singing starts. This too is a song that has a more melodic feel to it, but it is still true to Helmet's sound.

The rest of the album is pretty good, but it is pretty standard fare for other Helmet. It mostly resembles songs from Size Matters and later. IMO, Paige needs to stop screaming. It just doesn't work anymore, so he should just save his voice. And that would probably be my main negative comment about the CD. Fortunately, he doesn't do it too much. Certainly he screams less than he did on Monochrome.

Some of you may think to yourself that "Why would I want melody in a Helmet song? I listen to them to head bang. This guy is crazy." To put this in perspective, Meantime came out while I was in high school. I loved the heaviness and aggressiveness of that album. I still like that today, but that was about 18 years ago. My tastes have evolved to more than just fast and heavy power chords. I usually need more to keep me interested. Paige can write some great complex songs and still be true to the Helmet moniker. Some of the songs on this album show to me how much better some of his songs can be if he were to expand beyond just heavy riffs. Don't get me wrong, he is the riff writing master, but I hope that this is a direction he continues with, either with Helmet or another band.

Not a fan of Monochrome at all, but I do like Speak and Spell, Throwing Punches, Smart and Crashing Foreign Cars from Size Matters. I agree that 'LA Water' is the best track and quite possibly the only "5-star" song on this album. It works because it has a classic simple riff that gets built on and layerd over, the melodies are great with Page's classic dry humour "I haven't felt now for a while, the weather here is always warm." This album does suffer from the yelling/growling when singing could have done the job so much better; IMO 'Seeing Eye Dog' is a classic example of this - I always go away with the song being 'sung' in my head, instead of it being growled like in the recording.

At the end of the day, this album could have done with a different rhythm section - great riffs, pretty decent songs, but lacking something really strong to push those riffs out to the listener. My mate always raves about Stanier and Bogden's work on Betty, and as much as we might lament their loss, it's still great that Helmet is alive and active, even if we do only get 3 or 5 songs that we like per new record - that I say is better than nothing!

Gran trabajo de esta excelente banda rockera, cada CD nuevo siempre trae algo nuevo fuera de buenas guitarras y baterias. Grande

Seeing Eye Dog has many good melody songs.Almost all are heavy and sing-along. Some such as track 5 and 10 have unique atmosphere. I like this album very much as their other albums.

Come on Helmet you can do much better than this. Most of the tracks are predictable and lacking in energy. I love all the previous albums, even though Monochrome, Size Matters, and Aftertaste lack the fury of the earlier stuff. Not a complete dog but unlikely to keep fans happy until the next release. The band has done well to last this long but needs to up its game.

I have been anxiously waiting for a new Helmet album to grip me the way albums in the past had. Seeing Eye Dog delivers. If you are a fan of Helmet, this disc is perfect for you.

Another great album. A mix between the old and new Helmet, but a step up from Monochrome (and i loved that).

I am very pleased with how this album turned out. After Monochrome was released, I was shocked to hear how poorly it was done with very distracting screachy vocals. Seeing Eye Dog has enough songs like LA Water, Seeing Eye Dog, and So Long that are much a tip of the hat back to the meantime/betty sound that Paige Hamilton had back then. There are definately the melodies returning, and several times, I hear symphonic/string overtones mixed in with this album that harmonize well with whatever crunching riff may be placed with it. Thank goodness this album came out, I would have hated for Helmet to end with Monocrhome as it's Epitaph.

As a bonus, the live release of the 2006 Warped Tour show is a great compliment to finish the standard CD version. For those who are hardcore collectors, there is also a vinyl version of the New and Live material, and a Deluxe package that has the vinyl/CD releases plus a USB stick of 4 live shows from Europe and Michigan from 2007,2008, and 2009 tours. That is the package I have, and it is excellent. Thank you Helmet for your years of music.

THe first thing that i have to say is... HELMET IS NOT HELMET WITHOUT JOHN STAINER AND HENRY BOGDAN. Page is an excellent guitar player. and im a great fan of this band, i got all the albums (till aftertaste). But it is really worth buy an album just for the guitar?

be honest, this album sucks... as the other review, just the live album is that really worth.. and page lost his voice.. sings like James Hetfield! TERRIBLE!

There are a handful of good songs on the new album, and the live songs are a great bonus. It is easily worth the money to support Helmet who have always been an original and great rock band. Their style has changed in some parts, but there are still those crunching Helmet guitar riffs that we all love. I also saw Helmet in 2006, at a different Warped Tour, and they were great.